Within the scope of the present invention, the term “family of aircraft” refers to a set of aircraft of different types, but comprising equipment, for example computers, which are identical for all the aircraft of the family.
It is known that flight simulators, in particular those intended for training pilots, require a high level of realism and for this purpose comprise equipment, especially computing equipment, identical to that existing on the aircraft, whose operation it simulates.
Computing equipment of this sort mounted on a flight simulator and adapted for an entire family of aircraft comprises, in a known manner, a hardware unit which is common to said aircraft of said family and which is capable of carrying out at least one particular function, such as controlling cathode-ray tube displays on the instrument panel, for example, by implementing a suitable software program.
This software program, which is generally supported by a nonvolatile memory of a module removably connected to said hardware unit, is specific and exclusive to a given type of aircraft from said family.
Consequently, there are as many different modules each comprising an appropriate software program as there are different types of aircraft in the family in question.
Thus, in order to pass from a simulation mode relating to one type of aircraft (A330 for example) to a simulation mode relating to another type (A340, for example) of the same family, it is necessary to manually replace all the modules carrying specific software programs in the various computers of the simulator used.
To this end, by way of example, it will be noted that the civil transport aircraft of the A330/A340 type are each equipped with three DMC (Display Management Computer) computers intended to control the cathode-ray tube displays of the instrument panel, each of said DMC computers comprising two different modules, which involve replacing six modules on the flight simulator, for controlling said displays alone, when changing the simulation mode.
Such an operation of manually replacing a module, generally by unplugging and plugging, is restrictive, tricky to implement and expensive in terms of time.
In addition, the repetition of such operations, on each change of simulation mode, is a source of wear, in particular of the connection means provided on the hardware unit of the computer and/or on the modules.